Video 7:12
NT mini budget

Louisa RebgetzUpdated
Fri Dec 07 20:43:00 EST 2012

The Treasurer Robyn Lambley explains 600 public service job cuts.

Transcript

LOUISA REBGETZ, PRESENTER: This week the Territory Government unveiled its mini budget that will see 600 public service jobs slashed, cuts to major departments and the abolition of the alcohol court. Revenue will be increased by more expensive vehicle registration, bus fares and power, water and sewage tariffs. The Opposition has described the public sector job cuts as "mean and out of touch". I spoke to the Treasurer Robyn Lambley at Parliament House earlier today.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Treasurer Robyn Lambley welcome to the program.

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Thanks Louisa.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Can you say where these 600 public service job cuts will be from?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well Louisa as a part of the budget process we identified savings across all Government agencies so the job cuts will come from all agencies fairly equally in proportion. Obviously the larger agencies will suffer greater job cuts but across agencies we're looking at a three percent reduction in employment expenses over the forward estimates over four years so it's only three percent and when you consider that there's a natural attrition rate in the public service of 23 percent, these jobs will not be noticed greatly and most of those people will be redeployed in the public service.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Lawyers have criticised your decision to axe the Smart Court and the Alcohol and Other Drugs Tribunal, and instead you're actually spending more money on police. Won't this mean that more money is going on reacting to crime and less money going to preventing it?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well the Smart Courts or the Alcohol and Other Drug Tribunal has had a very low output. It's been very expensive to run - I think nine million dollars over the forward estimates. We see it as an unnecessary fixture leftover from the former Government. The court itself isn't performing any sort of preventative measure I wouldn't have thought when you look at what we're proposing and that is alcohol rehabilitation across the Territory. So it just doesn't fit in to our, the new priorities of this new Government.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Lawyers say that it helps get to the cause of why people are committing crimes.

The output has been so minimal I don't know that they could say that with all confidence. Perhaps for some people it was working successfully but a very expensive way to go about that. We think that rehabilitation and offering people other sorts of solutions in terms of their alcohol problems will be more effective over the long term and more efficient.

LOUISA REBGETZ: How much money are you setting aside for the increased cost that mandatory sentencing will mean for your Government?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Look it's going to be very, very expensive Louisa, we know that. We knew that going into the election that we were promising something that would cost a lot of money. We've put aside tens of thousands of dollars but we still haven't come up with the precise model that we're going to use but we have undertaken to do it. The Attorney-General is looking into that now, the Minister for Corrections and those details will be available in the coming months. 15 weeks into Government we still have a lot of work to do but the money has been earmarked and it will be available.

LOUISA REBGETZ: Well tens of thousands of dollars won't really cut it when it costs about 100-thousand a year per prisoner to have someone locked up?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well these facilities won't be exactly prisons they will be facilities that enable people to transform their lives, they'll have access to therapy. They'll be not sort of a lock-up prison if that's what you're comparing-

LOUISA REBGETZ: But the mandatory sentencing is for people who commit assaults, you know under the mandatory sentencing legislation, so these people won't necessarily be going through mandatory rehabilitation?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well if the primary problem is alcohol - being a habitual drunk and then offending by not attending voluntary alcohol rehabilitation when required then they will be mandated to go to alcohol rehabilitation services, but there again Louisa, we're still working out the model. We're not exactly sure what it will be but you're right it's going to cost a lot of money, there's no doubt about it. We have prioritised that.

LOUISA REBGETZ: You're also making funding cuts to the night patrols because you say other programs are doing the job of dealing with anti-social behaviour among itinerants - can you detail what those programs are?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well look the police have provided a frontline service, a first response service over recent times, employing eight people in Darwin to provide that sort of first response to people who might be engaging in anti-social behaviour. We've decided to remove that funding. We're increasing the police numbers by 120 throughout the Territory and we feel that having fully qualified police officers there at that first response moment is a more effective and efficient way to use our funds.

LOUISA REBGETZ: On the issue of health, you have delayed the expansion of renal dialysis services in Katherine. Now experts say we're facing a tsunami of people needing dialysis in the future - how can you justify this cut?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well we are indeed facing a tsunami. In places like Alice Springs, the renal services have grown and grown over the last 20 years that I've been around. Katherine's a little bit different - it's a slightly different scenario. Indeed the demand is there, Katherine being close to Darwin a lot of people go from Katherine, choose to go from Katherine to Darwin to have renal dialysis. There is a capacity in Katherine at the moment, we have been told by the health professionals down there - the services are not fully utilised so there's not the urgent or in critical demand that people would have you believe.

LOUISA REBGETZ: So those dialysis machines are actually free?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: They're underutilised at the moment in Katherine, which is a very interesting scenario when you compare it to Darwin and Alice Springs where they're working around the clock and the demand is escalating as you say.

LOUISA REBGETZ: You're cutting 5 million dollars from the community sector - NTCOSS is losing half its funding. Aren't these the very groups who support those most vulnerable to the rising cost of living here in the Territory?

ROBYN LAMBLEY, TREASURER: Well Louisa we are reducing the funding to some non-government organisations but we're in fact reinvesting that money within the next 12 months. We've had to really look closely at the office of Children and Families. There was a big hole left by the former Government - they employed 90 workers without providing any funding for it. So things are really tough in Children and Families. We've had to set new priorities, we've had to set new agendas and our priority has to be child protection and out of home care. Now a lot of non-government agencies are funded by children and families and not particularly providing services within that range. We've had to make some tough decisions when it comes to child protection Louisa, but we feel that in the long run non-government agencies will be winners. We will be investing more in the non-government sector over the coming years.